March 30, 2010

Enactment of Obamacare is a victory for Marxism

People who believe that health care is a right instead of a privilege embrace a fundamental principle of Marxism. This philosophy is built on the idea that workers are the source of productivity and must not be exploited by kings or capitalists; that workers must control their own destiny. This is the foundation of socialism. The Democrat Socialists of America admit that:

We are not a separate party. Like our friends and allies in the feminist, labor, civil rights, religious and community-organizing movements, many of us have been active in the Democratic Party. We work with those movements to strengthen the party's left wing, represented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

This belief system, articulated eloquently by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their Communist Manifesto, envisions the perfect society to be one in which everyone shares equally in work and wealth, coordinated by a hierarchy of representatives chosen from the workers. The Democratic Party considers its leaders to be that hierarchy, empowered to do whatever it takes to redistribute society's wealth more equitably.

Despite the ridicule and denials that spew forth from the Democrats, the enactment of Obamacare is a victory for Marxism in the United States, recognized and publicly acknowledged by Al Sharpton. What Democrats have done is absolutely consistent with Marxism; the way it was done provides a course in this Marxist principle: The end justifies the means.

Marxists, Socialists, Communists and Democrats have been trying for most of the century to advance a Marxist agenda. Woodrow Wilson implemented two major Marxist principles: the central bank and the income tax.

Germany, in particular, and Europe in general, were much more successful in advancing a Marxist agenda, including universal health care. The influence of Marx and Engels, and other collectivists, was much greater in Europe than in the United States early in the 20th century.

Franklin Roosevelt pushed the Marxist agenda quite hard and was partially successful. Social Security, enacted in 1935, was a major step. While the goal of creating a mechanism to ensure that senior citizens had retirement income was laudable, the Marxist notion that government could do it better than free enterprise condemned the program to constant shortfalls, ever-increasing taxes and eventual failure. How much better would it be now, if Congress in 1935 had chosen to simply allow the creation of individual retirement accounts in which untaxed principle and interest would be the property of the citizen for use after retirement?

Roosevelt and the Democrats believed the time was right in 1943 to introduce the first real legislation to create a universal health-care system. A bill, known as the Wagner-Murray-Dingell Bill (H.R. 2861), launched a congressional debate that continued until the 1964 election of Lyndon Johnson. He brought an overwhelming majority of Democrats to Washington: 66 to 34 in the Senate and 295 to 140 in the House.

Medicare and Medicaid were highlights of his "Great Society" in 1965. Originally, the plan cost each beneficiary $3 per month. In 2009, Medicare Part A cost 2.9 percent of payroll, and Part B cost $96.40 per month. This program, combined with Social Security shortfalls, faces unfunded liabilities totaling $106.8 trillion – that's TRILLION with a capital T. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that to meet this liability, the range of income-tax rates will have to increase from the current 10 to 35 percent, to 26 to 92 percent.

Marxists, Socialists, Communists and Democrats are unfazed by this reality. They believe it is their moral duty to take whatever is necessary from the rich, to give to the poor whatever they consider to be a civil right. Like Marxists around the world, Democrats have always believed that universal health care is a right, not a privilege. Just as the cost of Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid have exploded way beyond the projections promised at the time of enactment, the real cost of Obamacare will make a mockery of the published estimates. Democrats couldn't care less because, like all Marxists, they believe in the second principle from the Communist Manifesto: that government should impose "a heavy progressive or graduated income tax" to pay the costs of their agenda.